Money is a market phenomenon born from the scarcity of time. It’s a tool we’ve all agreed to trade across space and time, exchanging our energy and effort for currency, the base layer of money. We then choose to spend it or, to preserve its value, invest in scarcer assets like houses or stocks. Every economic choice carries an opportunity cost: the value of what we forgo to acquire something else. For something to be considered money, it typically needs to serve as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. Historically, however, what we’ve called money often fulfills only one or two of these roles. Currency primarily acts as a medium of exchange, gold as a store of value, and assets like stocks or airline miles function as units of account. Bitcoin, however, is unique. Its scarcity ensures it stores value, its network enables exchange and innovation, and its divisibility into satoshis makes it an effective unit of account. Bitcoin is the closest thing to perfect money humanity has ever seen.
